ANTI-APARTHEID ACTIVIST, ABRAM LOUIS 'BRAM' FISCHER

Today would’ve been the 118th birthday of Afrikaner lawyer and anti-apartheid activist, Abram Louis ‘Bram’ Fischer. 

He came from an aristocratic family; his grandfather Abraham Fischer was Prime Minister of the Orange River colony before the 1910 unification, and his father Percy Fischer, was Judge President of the Orange Free State. His family played a prominent role in the Afrikaner struggle for independence from British colonial rule. 

He was schooled at the prestigious Grey College in Bloemfontein and attend Grey University College (predecessor to the modern University of the Free State). A staunch and unwavering nationalist from a young age, he was elected Nationalist Prime Minister of a student parliament at university. In 1930 he was awarded a Rhodes scholarship and went on to New College, Oxford. During his time in Europe, he would take the opportunity to visit the Soviet Union. It was also around this time he would meet Molly Krige, who would later become his wife and political partner. She was a distant relative of Jan Smuts. Upon his return, he became a sought after lawyer, specialising in mining law and mineral and water rights. 

His political awakening came after he joined (at the behest of his mentor, Leo Marquard) Bloemfontein’s Joint Council of Europeans and Africans, an interracial, liberal and multiracial body established in 1921 to prompt racial harmony, social welfare, and improvements in the living conditions of Africans. At his very first meeting, he shook hands with a black man for the first time in his life. Due to the racial indoctrination he had received from childhood, this would be an uncomfortable experience for him but one that would become his Road to Damascus. 

In 1935, he joined the Johannesburg Bar, and he would marry Molly in 1937. They would also become members of the Communist Party in 1942, which would put them in touch with like-minded individuals and organisations working to oppose racial segregation in South Africa. His political views did little to deter his career at the time, with many looking forward to him climbing the political ranks and perhaps be Prime Minister one day. All that changed when the National Power and its coalition partners gained power in the 1948 elections and instituted the policy of apartheid. The Suppression of Communism Act killed any communist ambitions and in put the Fischers in the regimes crosshairs. 

In 1952, he defended Nelson Mandela and 19 other ANC leaders for their participation in the Defiance Campaign. In 1953, he was banned for the first time under the Suppression of Communism Act. He was also involved in the mammoth Treason Trial of 1956-1961, where all the defendants were acquitted. Nonetheless, he continued being a brilliant legal mind and by 1961 was elected chairman of the Johannesburg Bar Council. The events of the 21 March 1960 Sharpeville massacre brought widespread changes in South Africa. It introduced the General Law Amendment Act of 1962 aka the Sabotage Act of 1962, which gave the state powers to detain a person without trial for up to 90 days and to impose restrictions such as house arrest and banning orders. Bram and his wife were subjected to the statues of this law on countless occasions. 

When Lilliesleaf farm was raided on 11 July 1963, it resulted in the arrest of the then newly-formed High Command of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), and saw Nelson Mandela being brought to the mainland from Robben Island where he was serving a five-year prison term for inciting a strike and leaving the country illegally. Fischer was once again at the forefront of the legal defence during the Rivionia Trial (1963-1964). Although the state prosecutor Percy Yutar sought the death penalty, Mandela and his co-accused were spared and instead sentenced to life imprisonment. A few month later, on 23 September 1964, Fischer himself was arrested and charged with being a member of a banned organisation (the South African Communist Party). 

Fischer then abandoned bail and went underground. His actions went against the advice of Mandela who wanted him to use his legal prowess to challenge the apartheid regime in the court room. After his disappearance, he was struck off the advocate’s roll in 1965. After 290 days underground, Fishcher was finally apprehended by the law. He had assumed a new name and went by “Douglas Black”. In March 1966, he was put on trial on charges of furthering the aims of a communist organisation and conspiracy to overthrow the government. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to Pretoria Central Prison (now called Kgosi Mampuru II Management Area). 

In 1967, he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. His years in prison were harsh, since he was looked at as a traitor to his own people (Afrikaners). Prison authorities singled him out for unfair treatment and punishment. By 1974, there was a noticeable deterioration in his health. Denis Goldberg, one of the Rivonia Trial defendants Fischer represented, made urgent appeals to prison authorities about Bram’s health. Goldberg kept a secret diary of his medical care which was subsequently smuggled out of prison. Authorities denied him the use of a crutch and instead, a broom was used when his hip began giving him problems. A fall in the shower resulted in a fractured femur and neck. He endured the pain for 13 days until prison authorities sent him to a hospital. Upon his return, he was unable to look after himself and Goldberg petitioned the prison to allow him to take care of Fischer in his cell. It was later discovered that he was suffering from cancer. 

After news of his illness made the news, there was public outcry for him to be released on medical grounds. But since he was a political prisoner, he was required to serve his sentence daily. The apartheid regime only relented in April 1975 and released him into his brother’s care in Bloemfontein. It had been officially designated part of the prison estate so that his visitors could be restricted. He died on 8 May 1975. In one final act of cruelty, the apartheid regime confiscated his ashes, and were never returned to his family. The Department of Prisons did this to prevent his gravesite from becoming a “shrine” for the struggle against apartheid. 

At the time of his death, Fischer had two daughters, Ruth and Ilse. His youngest child, a son Paul, died of cystic fibrosis at age 23. His wife Molly tragically drowned when Bram swerved off the road to avoid a cow. The car landed in the Kool Spruit, near Ventersburg. The couple were on their way to Cape Town to celebrate Ilse’s 21st birthday. 

The township of Bram Fischerville, one of the first major post-apartheid housing projects, was named after him. In 2003, he was posthumously awarded the Order for Meritorious Service in Gold. He became the first South African to be posthumously reinstated to the Bar. In 2004, Stellenbosch University posthumously awarded him an honorary degree, a decision that rubbed alumni and management the wrong way. New College of Oxford University has held the annual Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture since 2007. In 2012, Bloemfontein International Airpot was renamed Bram Fischer International Airport. In 2015, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) posthumously awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 2017, a feature film called Bram Fischer / An Act of Defiance was released. It starred Peter Paul Muller as Bram Fischer. 

Hendrik Verwoerd Drive—named after the former prime minister known as the "architect of apartheid"—was renamed Bram Fischer Drive. The University of the Free State, his alma mater, hosts the annual Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture. The National Museum in Bloemfontein has a permanent Bram Fischer exhibition and compiled the 'Bram Fischer Trail', to  indicate the location of all the buildings and sites in and near Bloemfontein that are associated with Bram. The trail consists of a map with photographs and a short description of each building and site. These include, among others, Harmonie, the Fischer family’s home in President Reitz Street, and Ramblers Club in Aliwal Street where Bram played for the Free State rugby team against the visiting All Blacks in 1928. 

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